Fen Management Handbook - Scottish Natural Heritage

– Level control structures within ditches running across the site: some smallscale
plastic sheet-pile dams have already been installed in some of the shallow
ditches which channel water across the site. The success of these dams in
raising soil water levels should be reviewed and, if and where appropriate, more
dams should be added.
– Grout curtain/impermeable membrane: the basis of this option would be
installation of an impermeable vertical curtain adjacent and parallel to the
Western Cleddau. This curtain would reduce significantly subsurface discharge
to the main channel, thus raising water levels within the fen to a point where they
would overspill the impermeable curtain and flow into the main channel.
At the time of writing, further work was being carried out to confirm the technical
viability, feasibility and cost of these potential solutions.
Acknowledgements:
Bob Haycock (CCW) initiated and carried out most of the hydrological and other
monitoring at the site, assisted by others too numerous to mention. The Environment
Agency (Wales) funded and installed 4 groundwater monitoring boreholes at the
site.
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